But that works only so well. For example, a key turning point during World War II came when U.S.
cryptographers cracked the Japanese military’s code.

These days, while the battlefront has moved to computers and is being fought among security
experts and hackers around the world, a new chapter is unfolding in Columbus, where Battelle
researchers are mounting a defense using quantum mechanics.

Battelle has installed a fiber-optic cable between its King Avenue labs near Ohio State
University’s campus and its advanced-manufacturing center in Dublin. Particles of light called
photons travel back and forth along the cable and help computers in both locations create a code
that Battelle says hackers can’t hack.

It’s the first time such a system, called “quantum key distribution,” has been launched in the
United States.

Why is such a thing needed? The current system that protects everything from ATM passwords to
secret designs of atomic bombs is vulnerable and getting more so every day, experts say.

“Right now, things are OK,” said Donald Hayford, a Battelle senior research leader. “In five
years, they probably won’t be.”

Experts predict that’s how long it will take computers and code-breaking algorithms to attain
the required speed and prowess to decipher traditional security programs that scramble data into a
nonsensical jumble of numbers, letters and symbols.

This jumble contains a long, seemingly random number. Only a computer that knows the formula
that produced that number can pick it out of the jumble and use it as a code key. But because that
number is produced by a formula, it can be mimicked and cracked.

The key to the system Battelle plans to use lies within its truly random nature. Photons operate
in a subatomic state that math and physics can’t predict. Instead, their behavior is described by
quantum mechanics, which is based on probabilities.

In quantum key distribution, the code key itself is generated by that stream of photons.
Detectors in each computer build their code key by reading the photons sent their way.

It’s a number that no code-breaking formula can reproduce. And any attempt by a hacker to try to
intercept the code won’t work, because that would alter the orientation of the photons in the
stream. If that happens, Hayford said, the detectors at each end of the fiber-optic line can’t
agree on the code key. No code key, no code.

Battelle plans to build a ring of fiber-optic lines to connect all of its central Ohio
facilities by October 2014. If that’s successful, a line connecting Battelle’s Columbus and
Washington, D.C., offices would be established in 2015.

Despite its promise, the system has limits. For example, fiber-optic lines can transmit photons
for about 60 miles before the signal fades. One possible solution is to place a detector every 60
miles.

That would mean installing a line of seven detectors, or nodes, between Columbus and Washington,
said Jane Nordholt, a fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico who also works on
quantum key encryption.

Those detectors could be vulnerable, Nordholt said. “Knowing what that node knows gives you the
key. They have to be really secure.”

Hayford said he is working with Swiss company ID Quantique to make sure they are. “We’ll know if
someone is messing with them,” he said.

Lee Oesterling, a Battelle senior research scientist, is working on one process that splits
photons and sends them in opposite directions. The photons in each set would function as mirror
images of each other and allow computers to build a code key over a distance of 120 miles.

Hayford said banks and hospitals, which routinely transmit sensitive data, including financial
transactions and health records, are logical potential customers.

GridCom, a San Diego-based startup, wants to create a system that would help safeguard the
nation’s electrical grid from hackers.

“We’re hoping to have our prototype available for viewing later this year,” said Duncan Earl,
GridCom’s chief technology officer and a former researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

At Los Alamos, Nordholt is working on a system that would fill cellphones and computer tablets
with quantum key code numbers via battery chargers. The code numbers could then be used to
safeguard data and calls sent between wireless devices.

“Say I’ve never talked to you before and I dial your number. My phone would say, ‘Whoops! I don’t
know him, I’d better get a key for him,’ ” Nordholt said. “We could have secure phone calls now
anywhere in the world.”